Flood Season

All winter we gathered
memories like snowflakes
frozen and stored away in hushed
reverence. Empty smiles
and loving gestures suspended
lifelessly out of context and ruthlessly
tossed by January gales.
We had talent for ignoring pain
or simply an amnesiac's fear
of what it may mean. Surprised
by a sudden spring,
the rain came in torrents
yet we found ourselves frozen,
gazing wordless and dreamless
through the glass.

I am knee deep tonight.
The voices of them all
surround me as in a dream.
Still there is no comfort
in the aqueous embrace
of flood and uncertain past
only the slow, inescapable
death of the drowning victim,
once a champion swimmer,
curiously taken under by a riptide
or just one too many pain killers
before the evening swim.
I will read late into the night,

waiting on the stars
to dissolve with morning,
the setting of the Pleiades
signaling the end of the season
and silence.